To begin playing Jazz lead guitar you will need to be familiar with the major scale, as most other scales are derived from it. A major scale is a pattern of eight notes in alphabetical order that produce the familiar sound:
The C major scale contains these notes in the following order:
The distance between each note is two frets except for EF and BC where the distance is only one fret. The distance of two frets is called a tone, indicated by T. The distance of one fret is called a semitone, indicated by ST. The major scale is probably the most common scale used in music.
Here is one octave of the C major scale in the open position. Make sure you know it from memory.
Below is a diagram of all of the natural notes in the open position. They are also all notes of the C major scale, even though the lowest note of the pattern is E and the highest note is G. The key note C is indicated twice. This pattern can be described as the full open position fingering of the C major scale.